So the hatemail dubbed me THE.... Sodomite Hal Duncan!! (sic) So I will wear that with pride, cuntfuckers. It's like The Outlaw Josie Wales only better, right? I mean, did he have a fully capitalised THE, an extra-long dramatic pause, and two exclamation marks? No, he did not. Chickenshit.

Jason: I've always really liked the white lettering (they used this style on the UK bound proofs before coming up with the black "graving" look). I like that "burning through the Vellum from below" sorta feel and it fits with one particular description -- where Phreedom sees her brother's signature in the motel guest book. I always thought of it as kinda like that.

The Pan Mac scrawly-black logo won me over because it is *really* swish, and after initial reticence I now like it as much as (somedays more than, somedays less than) the burny-white. I love the way they've kept it consistent with the logo they've come up with for INK. I'll be curious to see whether the Del Rey INK cover is modelled on the same art.

Other aspects? The Macmillan cover is less saturated in colour, the Del Rey cover pretty super-saturated. Put them together and you tend to get one-looking wishy-washy and the other looking gauche, but view them apart and they both look striking.

I guess at the end of the day the textured finish of the Pan Mac edition just makes it more strokable, but other than that I'm really hard-pushed to choose between them.

Andrew: Happy Birthday when it comes. I know I speak for myself, my editor and everyone at Del Rey when I say I can't think of a better birthday present you could buy yourself. ;)